The Last Unicorn ­ The Movie (Preview)

»One of the greatest fantasy poets of our time,lasquo; wrote the New York Times about Peter S. Beagle. »He has both opulence of imagination and mastery of style.« His classic »The Last Unicorn«, published in 1968, was, and still is, a worldwide bestseller and long-standing cult book translated into several languages. A master of the modern fairy tale, imbuing his characters with warmth and suspense, Beagle has been compared with the Grimm Brothers, Lewis Carroll, and J.R.R. Tolkien. And now that Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings are breaking box office records, a Continental Film production of The Last Unicorn ­ The Movie is underway ­ spearheaded by producer Michael Pakleppa and to be directed by special-effects master Julian Doyle, a longtime collaborator with Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones. No doubt, cineastes and aficionados will remember the impact made on audiences of all ages when The Last Unicorn was released as a feature-length animation film in 1983. The reason? The Last Unicorn is about growing up, not about exploits of wizardry; about the reality of dreams, not about fighting monsters; about the discovery of love, not about winning battles. Like every good fairy tale, it’s a story of pure magic, of poetic fantasy, of making dreams come true.

       This is the story of the last unicorn on earth, and her search for lost companions. All the other unicorns have disappeared from the face of the earth. The butterfly says they’ve been captured by the evil King Haggard (Christopher Lee) and imprisoned in the waves, where they are guarded by the demonic Red Bull, a powerful creature of pure fire. Determined to rescue the others, the unicorn maid sets out on a long journey, accompanied by the kindly Schmendrick, a would-be magician and showman. To enable the last unicorn to enter the castle, Schmendrick turns her into a woman, the beautiful Lady Amalthea. Along the way, she meets a menagerie of magical creatures: a harpy, a dragon, a sea serpent, a talking tree, a chatty cat, a drunken skeleton (Rene Auberjonois), the witch Mommy Fortuna (Angela Lansbury) ­ and Prince Lir, the son of King Haggard, who falls in love with Lady Amalthea at first sight.

       Scripted by Peter Beagle, the movie version is a »tale of pure magic,« according to the Oscar-showered team working on The Last Unicorn. Most important of all, the production marks the first time in film history that a fully realistic, emotionally charged, computer-generated, main-character acting savoir-faire places real actors in real locations ­ »magical realism,« its creators call it. Currently, computer tests are being made with creatures, scale models sculptured, locations researched, backgrounds filmed, illustrations fashioned, costumes designed, and storyboards visualized. The Last Unicorn ­ The Movie begins production in the spring of 2002.

­ Editors